State Bank of Morocco
Following ratification of the Act of Algeciras by the participating nations, the bank's constituent general assembly was held at the Bank of France in Paris under Pallain's chairmanship and officially established it on 25 February 1907 as a limited company under French law, with registered office (French: siège social) in Tangier but whose board of directors would meet in Paris.
Each of the 12 participating countries (Austria-Hungary, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Morocco itself; the United States did not take part) received one block; the two remaining blocks of shares were reserved for the consortium associated with the Moroccan debt restructuring of 1904, in practice controlled by the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas.
[9] By mid-1925, the former Austrian and Russian stakes and most of the Moroccan one had also passed under French control, which thus represented slightly over half of the State Bank's total equity capital.
By 1947, the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas owned 57.2 percent of the State Bank's capital[3]: 59 and could appoint eight of its 14 Board members.
[3]: 84–85 In 1958, the newly independent Moroccan government started negotiations with France and the State Bank to reclaim for itself the right to issue money.
On 4 December 1922 it moved to 33 rue La Boétie, where the bank also opened a branch office for its French customers and stayed until at least the late 1930s.
At its creation in 1907, the State Bank of Morocco took over the Moroccan operations of the Comptoir national d'escompte, including its current accounts[18] and its three branches in Tangier, Casablanca, and Mogador (now Essaouira).
By June 1913, the State Bank's network had expanded with new branches in Mazagan (now El Jadida), Oujda, Rabat, Safi, and Larache in the Spanish protectorate.
[20] By December 1921, branches had been added in Fez, Kenitra, Marrakesh, Meknes, and also Alcazarquivir (now Ksar el-Kebir) and Tétouan in the Spanish protectorate.
[11] Relations with the Spanish protectorate authorities had been suspended in 1920 but restarted in 1928, allowing the opening of new branches in Arcila (now Asilah) and Villa Sanjurjo (now Al Hoceima).
[24] In Tangier, the State Bank's head office was located in its property inherited from the Comptoir national d'escompte, a Moorish-style multistory building constructed in 1903 in the vicinity of the Petit Socco, the old center of the city’s commercial activity.
[30] It was demolished in the second half of the 20th century after the creation nearby of the Avenue des Forces Armées Royales, under new urban planning proposed by Michel Écochard.
The inauguration ceremony on 16 October 1937 featured speeches by Resident-general Charles Noguès and by the State Bank's CEO Georges Desoubry.
[33] The state-of-the-art building, designed by Auguste Cadet [fr] and Edmond Brion and in which central administrative functions were transferred from Tangier, was inaugurated on 15 December 1925 and was described as "the most beautiful modern monument of French Morocco".
Aside from Rabat and Casablanca, Cadet and Brion worked jointly in the 1920s and early 1930s on the design of the State Bank's branches in Marrakesh (1922), Mazagan (1925),[24] and Oujda (1926, replacing an earlier three-story, medieval-looking building[35]).
The National Bank had its Albanian seat in Durrës, later moved to the new capital of Tirana, but was created under Italian law and its board met in Rome.
